Should cities limit the number of ride-sharing vehicles on the roads?

New York City has passed new legislation temporarily capping the number of ride-hail cars on the roads. The bill limits the number of new licenses for ride-sharing vehicles for a year pending a city-wide study and allows the city to set a minimum wage for drivers. Proponents say this is a step towards ensuring drivers can earn a living wage, as well as reducing congestion on the city's roads. Opponents say the city is cutting one of the few reliable sources of transportation available. What do you think?

PERSPECTIVES

The bill caps new ride-sharing vehicle licenses for one year to allow the city to study the effects the industry has on the city's traffic and existing transportation infrastructure. Additionally, it allows the city to mandate wages for ride-sharing drivers. Jalopnik explains the bill further.

The legislation also allows the city to pass a minimum wage. A study by the city's Taxi & Limousine Commission proposed a minimum wage of $17.22 per hour, which is the equivalent for an independent contractor of $15 per hour plus paid time off. It covers al drivers who work for ride-hailing companies, including Lyft, Via and Juno.

The study's authors, James Parrot of NYC's New School and Michael Reich of the University of California-Berkely, said the minimum wage would have a significant impact for many drivers. The pair's findings found that 85 percent of current ride-hailing app drivers earn less than their proposed wage.

"These drivers would receive an additional $6,345 per year," they wrote. "The net (after-expense) pay increase among these drivers would average 22.5 percent."

Officials also pointed to the study's finding that 90 percent of the city's app-based drivers are immigrants, and driving is the only job for two-thirds of them. An estimated 80 percent acquired their vehicle to enter the industry. And more notably, 40 percent of drivers have incomes so low they qualify for Medicaid, and another 16 percent have no health insurance. Nearly one-in-five drivers qualify for food stamps.

Spokespeople from Uber and Lyft have been vocal about their disappointment with the city's decision. According to Recode:

Uber and Lyft have warned users that this may lead to higher prices and longer wait times for rides. "These sweeping cuts to transportation will bring New Yorkers back to an era of struggling to get a ride, particularly for communities of color and in the outer boroughs," Lyft VP of Public Policy Joseph Okpaku said in a statement.

"The City's 12-month pause on new vehicle licenses will threaten one of the few reliable transportation options while doing nothing to fix the subways or ease congestion," Josh Gold, a spokesman for Uber, said in a statement.

The New York Daily News reports members of City Council are confident this measure will help improve the lives of the city's many existing drivers.

"This is about supporting and uplifting drivers, making sure they are paid enough to support their families," Council Speaker Corey Johnson said. "Our goal has always been to protect drivers, bring fairness to the industry and do our best to reduce congestion -- or at least not add to it."

..."There was a time in New York City when you could, as a recent immigrant ... drive a cab and be able to make into the middle class, provide a better future for your family and your children," Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn), the prime sponsor of the license legislation, said during a committee vote on it. "What we've seen over the last few years is that foothold of the American dream slip away for thousands of drivers."

Many opponents of the new bill say limiting the number of ride-sharing vehicles on the road will most hurt communities of color. According to NPR:

Supporters of Uber and Lyft say that in addition to helping alleviate New Yorkers from unreliable public transit, the services have been a help when yellow cabs have a record of not stopping for African-American and Hispanic New Yorkers.

"They're talking about putting a cap on Uber, do you know how difficult it is for black people to get a yellow cab in New York City?" activist Rev. Al Sharpton wrote on Twitter.

DeRay Mckesson, an activist involved with the Black Lives Matter movement, wrote: "It will be interesting to see what happens politically if, as many predict will happen, that ride-sharing cars decrease and users are forced to take yellow cabs -- the same yellow cabs that refuse to pick up black/brown people. Will the city council members survive that?"

Driver Tidiane Samassa wrote in an op-ed for the New York Daily News, the proliferation of ride-sharing vehicles has gutted his income:

The reason is that there are too many Uber cars on the road, plain and simple. Sometimes it now takes me over an hour driving around before I get a passenger, because all around me there are thousands of other for-hire cars also empty.

All of us are competing for a smaller slice of the pie as Uber adds more cars to the streets each month with no limit.

I've been a professional driver serving New York City for 14 years. In 2014, I switched from driving a yellow cab to Uber.

At that time, with fewer cars and higher fares, you could make good money. I could take care of my family. I made up to $1,900 a week working eight to nine-hour shifts, six days a week. Then in 2015, they started piling on the cars. And in 2016, they lowered the fares.

Now, there just aren't enough fares to go around. I work seven days a week, and even driving for 12, 13, or 14 hours each day, I rarely break $1,000 a week -- and that's before expenses. I pay for my car, gas and vehicle maintenance all out of pocket.

Some transportation experts argue this bill will do nothing to advance its stated goal of fixing the city's existing traffic issues, per Wired:

About 2.7 million vehicles enter New York City every day, and it's doubtful that limiting the supply of ride-hail cars alone will clear the roads and air. "There's still a ton of private cars that are clogging up the streets," says Jon Orcutt, director of communications at the research and advocacy group TransitCenter.

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